


Empty Mask

by Wassup_Persona (Ha_YouWish)



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Akira cant feel anything so why would he date anyone????, Akira is best Blank, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ann and Shiho are gay, Ann and shiho are best gays, Blank Akira, Fuck akiras parents in the game, Futaba is best hacker, Gen, Goro is best "not dead", Haru is best pyscopath, Hifumi is best shogi gurl, I made akiras moms actively support him, Makoto is best team mom, Mishima is best dork, Morgana is best cat, Rival AU, Ryuji is best boy, Sojiro is best coffe dad, Theives of Hearts is already a thing, They dont exist. These ones do, Vote akira for worlds best actor, Yusuke is best art
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ha_YouWish/pseuds/Wassup_Persona
Summary: Blanks have power. Power over the human mind. The collective unconscious. People with great power who come around every once and a while to sway the flow of mankind- toward good or evil. A bedtime story many are told.Akira is a Blank- he doesn't feel emotions. However, in a rush of something unfamiliar, he decides to protect the woman on his way home from school. He's sent off to Tokyo, becoming a target and a rival of the popular group known as Thieves of Hearts.The game will play out differently with the players pitted against each other. No matter who wins, the fall of humanity is the only way to end it, for the Trickster who will save them cannot feel.





	Empty Mask

_“Master? Why inform them of their fate when he hasn't arrived?”_ said one.

**“Yes… why indeed?”**

_“Master?”_ asked the other.

**“It will… progress his rehabilitation early.”**

_“I guess that makes sense…”_ the former said softly.

_“Of course it does! We’re supposed to aid him, right?”_

**“Correct.”**

* * *

 

Most people describe Akira’s hometown as a peaceful countryside. There is still superstitious people who take a wrong look as a government conspiracy, but people will insist it’s peaceful. There was also the fact that people would look at you like a monster the moment you say something wrong, yet the town is peaceful.

It’s a small town - peaceful. Everyone knows each other - peaceful. Everyone’s close enough to hear whispers of rumor - peaceful. It’s considered a quiet town, but it’s hardly peaceful. It’s quiet because of the distance they put from the outsiders. If you visit, you’re considered an outsider. The town goes quiet to you. If you do something wrong in their eyes, you’re an outsider.

Akira learned the latter the hard way. Between the time of his arrest and moving to Tokyo, most except for his parents turned away. It was fine, it’s not like he felt something for those people.

He remembers just hours ago, his mothers asking him to call as soon as he can get to a quiet enough place.

Akira can see why it was so specific. The first thing he notices in Tokyo is that it's loud. There’s so many people, it's difficult to adapt to every one of them. What do they want? He hears gossip on the train.

_“Did you see who they went after…”_

_“Yeah It’s totally crazy…”_

_“There are so many weird people on the streets now…”_

_“One pointed at me…”_

There are several conversations he can hear, everyone in their own worlds.

_“They're causing some trouble for my boss…”_

_“It's the only job I have and it sucks…”_

It's now obvious to him, they don't want him in their worlds. So Akira stays as quiet as his hometown had gone to him.

It's in Shibuya’s crossing that the icon covers up most of the frizzy haired boy’s phone screen.

It’s there that the world stops and there that a blue flame takes a shape of _something_.

It's there that the boy’s blank eyes meet with yellow.

And it's there that the blue watching ones look away.

Something tells them _this boy is important._

**  
**

After finally finding his way to a small cafe called LeBlanc, Akira meets his new guardian for the year.

Sojiro Sakura isn't as much of an asshole as Akira thought he would be. It makes sense, taking care of a kid with a record would make you think they were up to no good all the time. Akira stays polite and a disinterested, earning a few glares but no comments from his new guardian as he explains the rules.

By the time it’s over and Akira gets a chance to clean, he’s tired. Even with the little actual work he did, Sakura does have a look of surprise on his face, like he hadn't thought he’d clean at all. So much for doing what people want him to. Maybe Tokyo’s backwards?

After Sakura goes home, Akira makes good on his promise.

He sits on his bed and calls home.

 _“Aki? Hey!”_ He hears his mom say very loudly into the phone, _“Susie!”_

 _“Yes?”_ a voice in the background responds to the nickname.

_“He called!”_

There’s a noise of his mother moving to the phone to speak, _“Hello Akira! I guess the city is not that quiet, is it?”_

“Not really. It's actually pretty loud, here.”

_“See? I said to tell him to just text or something,” his mom laughed, “But are you enjoying your stay in Tokyo?”_

“I might be if I was here for a different reason,” Or was able to enjoy things in the first place, “So far, not so good.”

 _“Well…”_ his mother tried, both of their  excitement to talk quickly deflating with her words, _“We would have come if we could. ”_

 _“Yeah, we would,”_ his mom sighs _, “But dammit, you can find some good in Tokyo. There's plenty of people in Tokyo with plenty of stories to offer, go makes some friends. Promise us to make at least one.”_

“I’ll try.” Yeah, right.

 _“Aki,”_ his mother pretends to warn.

“I will. Promise.”

_“You better.”_

The rest of their short conversation is their plans of monthly check-ins to see how he’s doing. They say their goodbyes and Akira hangs up.

Immediately after he hangs up, an icon shows up on his homescreen. He remembers what happened at the crossing. The yellow eyes full of some kind of emotion. Emotion. The yellow eyes aren't his. They can't be.

He deletes the app. He gets ready for bed and falls asleep with the memory of a choice.

****

_Choice…_

Blue. The ceiling is blue. The walls are blue and close together. Whatever he’s laying on is uncomfortable under his back.

He sits up to realize his wrists are chained together. His attire is black and white stripes, like attire for a prisoner in cartoons.

He looks up at a cell door. So he _is_ the prisoner.

Blue. Two little girls in blue and an eye patches on opposite eyes stand on the other side of the cell door.

A man in a suit and with a long nosed sits at the desk.

**“Trickster, welcome to my Velvet Room.”**

Akira wakes up and gets dressed. He thinks about what the man in his dream had said.

_Ruin…_

_Rehabilitation…_

_Others…_ something? He can only those three words. The rest is a fuzzy dream. Is this what they were always like?

Sakura takes Akira to Shujin Academy where his teacher, principal, and guardian somehow manage to all complain about him at the same time while meaning the same thing: Don't mess this up.

“They're treating you like some kind of nuisance,” Sakura says as they walk out the school, “I guess that's what it means to have a criminal record.” He then goes on to threaten to kick him out if he messes up.

Akira politely nods and continues walking.

The app appears on his phone later that night. Akira wonders if it's a virus and looks up ways to remove it.

There’s no information on it.

****

The next day Akira gets lost trying to get to his train. Once he finally gets to the correct train and gets off, it's raining. He doesn't care about the rain, but his phone would get wet if he looked for directions out in the open.

He moves over to the nearby overhang of a shop and looks up directions. His phone vibrates at the red icon opening again, but his attention is drawn elsewhere as he hears footsteps pass by and two people arguing.

A boy and a girl his age standing under a large umbrella. Both with blond hair, but the former’s obviously dyed.

“Still don't' understand why _I’m_ doing it.”

“You have to go Ryuji.”

“Why? I’m not the person for this. I'll mess up,” the boy grumbles.

“Then do it right! We’re all doing our own part, _do yours_.”

“Okay, damn. But it's not like I want to.”

“I don't want to do my part either, so suck it up!” The girl walks off. The boy is left in the rain without an umbrella.

However interesting that conversation may be to others, Akira turns his attention back to the icon and deletes it again. He hears footsteps run up the sidewalk, splashing in puddles quickly.

He stares at the directions listed on his phone. From where he is, he needs to go to his left and-

“Hey, you!”

He lifts his head and stares at the blond boy he saw before. Now that he’s closer, Akira can see that he is wearing the same sort of school uniform, though it easily breaks dress code. A person he doesn't know in the same uniform as him. Maybe he has directions.

“Do you go to Shujin Academy?” Akira asks, “You know how I can get there from here?”

“Never seen you ‘round here before. Second year. Huh,” the boy thinks for a minute, “Are you the transfer student?”

Akira nods.

“That makes sense. You want to get to Shujin? Just follow me. I know a shortcut.” If Akira has any care for his own being, he would turn around. The thing is, he doesn't.

So he follows his classmate through dripping alleyways, tucking his phone into his pocket. He follows until he sees the boy start to slow down.

“Well here’s Shujin,” he says leaning on the wall and fiddling with his phone, “I have something I need to check, so go on ahead.”

Akira nods and starts walking out of the alleyway. It's the same school he visited before. At least now he knows a shorter way to get there.

Suddenly Akira’s head hurts. The world seems to shift around him. He looks up. There’s a red sky a stone manor towering above him, the type he would see on TV. What-

It's gone. The school’s back. No manor. No red sky. Just the sign on the school saying he’s at Shujin Academy.

“You okay?” He hears the boy say from behind him.

Akira nods, “Yeah, just a headache.” The boy nods and walks off toward the school. Maybe he has something to do with the manor he saw.

It doesn't matter now. Sakura wants him to go to school and he needs to make a good impression to stay alive in this city. So Akira walks off into his new school.

****

Akira doesn't care about the whispers, really. It’s easy to block them out. But it's hard to find his way to the faculty office because people scatter when he tries to ask for directions.

He moves on to someone else.

**  
**

Ann feels bad for him. From where they are, she sees him try three times to ask for directions, and it's all her fault. Or, partly her fault, but the guilt she feels doesn't care much about that.

“I feel bad,” she tells Makoto, “We don't even know if this guy _is_ a criminal or the person we’re looking for.”

“We know the first part,” she hesitates, “Futaba already looked up his record.”

“I still feel guilty.”

“I don't think he cares, though,” Makoto points out, “So far he’s had no aggressive reaction to it, like any of us might have. He might’ve expected it.”

Ann sighs. That only makes it worse. _Thanks for the comforting words Makoto_. She still doesn't like it, but she nods.

“I'm going to go talk to him.”

Makoto watches as Ann quickly walks over to him. Ann’s better at acting than they first met, but sometimes Makoto gets worried that someone wouldn’t fall for it. She had a feeling he might not.

And he doesn't. Ann returns from her quest for information fruitless, the only thing she really got was that he doesn’t know where the factly office is.

“I told him where it is, though.” Ann says, then adds as an afterthought, “Not very necessary info to have, though.”

Makoto sighs, “Looks like this is Mission: Failure. When I heard of a criminal transfer student, he wasn't what I thought of or planned for.”

“At least we know he doesn't buy acting, but that's all I got. We don't really have anything useful, do we?”

“Actually,” Makoto says as they both start to walk to the spot everyone said they'd reconvene at, “That could be sort of useful.”

****

“Hey, you!” That's the second person to say that today. Akira turns to see a pig-tailed blond girl walking up to him. She smiles and holds out her hand.

“I'm Ann Takamaki, assigned by the student council president to help you out.”

Akira shakes her hand, “Uh, thank you Takamaki-san. I'm Akira Kurusu.”

“I'm supposed to make sure your transfer to the city has been doing well. How are you settling in?”

She’s awfully cheery despite the constant whispers of rumor around them. Any normal person would be less than happy to help him. Or at least a little cautious. Because that's how people _behave_. So Akira answers her question.

“Okay.”

“Uh, is there any concerns about your transfer you wanted to ask?”

“No I don't, but if I had any, I'd let my homeroom teacher know.”

“O-okay.” Though she hides it well, Akira can tell she’s nervous. He doesn't know why, but it doesn't matter.

“Well, anyway-”

“Do you know where the faculty office is?” He cuts her off.

She stares at him for a moment. He has an empty gaze. Finally, she sighs and points him in the right direction.

Akira gets to the faculty office in time as his teacher walks out.

“Oh! You actually _did_ come,” Kawakami says, actually shocked. “Well I'll show you where the classroom is, the bell is going to ring soon. I want you to introduce yourself.”

Akira nods.

“Oh, and please don't say anything stupid or rude when you're supposed to say your name.”

Akira nods again and follows her to his classroom.

As he expected, the students in his class are the same as the ones in the hallways but louder. After Akira introduces himself all his classmates start talking.

He stares at the chalkboard on the other side of the classroom in uninterest and waits for Kawakami to point him to his seat.

The girl from the hallway looks up at him when he passes.

“You’re-” she starts but cuts herself off at the sight of his empty stare covering up with a sort of confusion. Akira takes his seat behind her and half-focuses on the lesson despite the ever increasing whispers.

**  
**

Ann talks to him during lunch. Or at least tries to.

“Hey.”

He looks up at her in surprise, probably not expecting anyone to talk to him. 

“I just wanted to say that just because Ma- I mean Niijima-senpai, wanted me to help you out, doesn't mean I don't want to myself. You see what I'm talking about, right?” Ann waits for a response.

He stays quiet and nods.

“And I also feel guilty for believing some of the rumors about you. So, I wanted to ask what really happened.”

At this, he rolls his eyes, “Of course you do. Just ask anyone around. I apparently knocked the guy out. I've probably killed someone. I've maybe threatened people at this school when I've only been here for less than a day. Why not add more?”

“You don't have to be rude! That’s not what I-”

“I have to go anyways.” He picks up his bag and leaves the room. Conversations of rumor immediately start the second the door closes.

Ann decides that her information attempt is a complete failure. What is she doing wrong?

She probably hurt his feelings, it would be best to apologize the next time she sees him.

 

Akira’s perfectly fine after he walks out the room. It's not like he can be mad, so there's nothing to cool down from afterwards. It's easier for him to just act how people see him.

At least she probably won't talk to him anymore.

Akira finds a spot away from people to lean on the wall and waits out the rest of lunch.

****

Afterschool, as Makoto waits for the transfer student to come up to the student council room, she thinks on what she’s going to say. She needs it to be professional and convincing. If he has the app, she would need to find out.

For a second, just one, Makoto doubts what she’s doing. How can she know if what she’s been told is true? Of course it’s true! It worked out many times in the past, the Thieves have evaded certain danger and death plenty of times. He must be the enemy. She can't have any doubts, she's the leader. She can and will expose that criminal.

“I was asked to come here?” a voice from the door says.

“Ah, yes, that was me. Please, sit down Kurusu,” she gestures to the seat across from her. He does as she says.

“My name is Makoto Niijima,” she starts off, “And as student council president, it is my job to make sure students here are safe.” Makoto pauses watches him intently for a reaction to her words. He nods. Light reflects off his glasses, making her unable to get a read of the situation. But she is determined to crack any defenses.

“Now then, for reasons better left unsaid I was informed of your record before it became public knowledge. It wasn't supposed to become public knowledge. My  I am trying to get to the bottom of who spread it and I would like to have your cooperation.” She looks for a reaction again. There's none. She inwardly sighs, tapping her foot against the floor.

He nods again, “Okay.”

“Please don't think this means I want you to go after this person for some type of revenge. The point of this is to find out who it is-”

“You feel it's a student here.”

“I was about to get to that,” She looks sharply at him for cutting her off, “There has been a virus in the form of an app spreading around on a lot of student's phones, and it's been releasing various information online. I suspect it is a student out for revenge. I was wondering if you had it on yours as well.”

Makoto catches an all-knowing look in his eyes before he tilts his head up and she can't see them anymore. Did he figure her out? That would mean… no, she needs to continue asking questions. But he asks one first.

“What does this app look like?”

“It has a red icon. It also has an eye with a star in it.”

There's a pause. It's a very small pause- _Hesitation_ , Makoto thinks, _He’s going to lie._ She looks for something. There’s always something people do when they lie. She herself does it- she's been silently tapping her foot the entire time.

“Sorry, but I don't have that app.” There was nothing she could see that was obvious. He's a criminal, obviously his lying would be good.

“May I see your phone?” Maybe she can still do something.

“Sure.” He takes his phone out and unlocks it.

Makoto takes it from him. He obviously has nothing to hide. The Nav isn't there. But she can still work with the time she's given. She looks through several of his most important apps quickly and discreetly, and does her most important job.

After she's done, she exits out and of everything and hands it back to him.

“Very well. I'm sorry for taking your time. If you do find the app on your phone, please come directly to me.”

“I will.”

“You are free to leave.”

And so he left. Makoto decides that the conversation provides useful information and writes down several notes.

_-Hides his eyes._

_-Quiet._

_-Good liar._

_-Polite. (Just an act?)_

_-Definitely an act._

_-Observant. (Sees through acting)_

_-Not intimidated easily._

_-_

  
She leaves the last note unwritten. She needs more evidence for that one. For now, it's time to reconvene with the others. 


End file.
